Church History
St. Edward, by Joseph A. Dunney [1945]
Sculpture of St. Edward the Confessor
Saint Edward the Confessor
Sans Peur Et Sans Reproche
Saint Edward And The Eleventh Century
A Parable Verified
The story of what God did for His Church in this century can be told in the parable of the vineyard.
A vineyard belongs to my friend,
On a hill that is fruitful and sunny;
He digged it, and cleared it of stones
And planted there vines that are choice
And he looked to find grapes that are good,
Alas, it bore grapes that are wild.[1]
Europe was just such a vineyard "grown over with thorns, its face covered with nettles, the stone wall thereof broken down." Nothing could restore the devastation save the Providence of Him Whom men had actually tried to exclude from His own world. "And He looked for justice, but behold! bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold! an outcry!" So the Divine Husbandman once again gave the orders — ‘Go out into My Vineyard! Dig it clear of stones! Plant vines that are choice!’" The Holy Roman Empire had quite gone to ruin when eager laborers appeared on the scene: popes with their hands to the plow, saints with their mattocks to break the clods, scholars who enriched the fallow fields of knowledge. True, there were evil men in high places, the nobles still battled in old feudal fashion, Europe’s plight of political misery was far from over and done with. For all that, the faithful laborers continued at their task till the evening. They dug diligently, uprooted the thorns and briars, strove to clear the field of stones. The result was that in place of a field run wild, the vineyard showed sturdy growths, watched over until they could show forth a glorious harvest for Christendom.
One of these laborers, Edward the Confessor, accomplished his Heaven–assigned task in a sadly neglected corner of Europe. His mother was none other than great–grand daughter of Rollo, the Sea–Rover; his father Ethelred the Unready, the Saxon King of England. Our saint saw the light of day in 1003 on the soil of the pirate–ridden island. He was only a year old when his father engaged in a conflict with Sweyn, the Northman who rode roughshod over the land. No part of Europe suffered more widespread devastation; trees dead, crops ruined, fields untilled; towns, villages, monasteries reduced to ashes. Not till 1007 did Sweyn desist from ravaging every county in England and then only after he had received thirty–six thousand pounds of silver —Danegelt. Two years later the invaders returned to prey upon the kingdom; finally the Danish leader, Thurchil, sold his service to Ethelred for forty–eight thousand pounds. It is clear that from boyhood up, Edward saw action aplenty; and strangely enough, Saxon England and Normandy share the story of his eventful life on earth. They were years crowded with earth–shaking events, years destined to witness one of the greatest developments in history.
Every Inch a Prince
The career of the great Confessor, spent in the midst of strife, offers amazing proof of God’s loving kindness. His parents were an unnatural pair; Ethelred a hard, bitter man, both revengeful and capable of the blackest hatred; Emma of Normandy, a driving woman ever a thorn in her husband’s flesh. One’s heart goes out to the young prince at the thought of such a mother who was just a beautiful animal almost devoid of maternal feeling. Both parents paid dearly for their cruel selfishness; they not only forfeited the love and respect of their children but their earthly journey ended in ghastly failure. When Edward was only nine the King, hard pressed by his foes, sent Emma with her two sons to Normandy. The Normans were Gauls, short in stature, strongly built, the curious product of inter–marriage between Scandinavian sea–kings and Gallic nobles. Quickly the Saxon lad discovered that his kinsmen could be mean and quarrelsome, their cold eyes lighting up with a fierce anger at. the prospect of a fight or even of a challenge. At first they must have been puzzled by Edward, so good, generous, sentimental; withal very firm, just, fearless! Their Viking ancestors had battled with earth and air, so bad his! Their forebears had won the faith through brave missionaries, so had his! And he was able to join with the toughest in their hawking and swordplay; nay more, he could break a lance with the bravest. No one could envisage his secret world any more than they could glimpse his alert brain under the Norman helmet. None the less they must have admired his manner and conduct, his refusal to bow to low ideals.
For twenty–five years Edward dwelt an exile among his kinsmen. All those years he saw Norman power grow apace. They waged war and built castles without cease, as might be expected of a race with Viking and Gallo–Roman blood. Over the channel, however, things were vastly different; this, Edward, knew from his father who in 1014 had fled to Normandy, hotly pursued by the Danes who laid waste his kingdom. Ethelred, ever the Unready, returned to fight it out but ended a calamitous reign two years later. An elder son Edmund (Ironsides) succeeded, and reigned seven months, after which Canute established himself easily over the whole realm. Was Edward surprised when the Dane sent over for his mother in Normandy and promptly married her? Hardly, for the craft of this woman could devise ways of power that never entered into the hearts of those about her. Now that she had cast her lot with pirate Danes, it was certain that little thought would be given her sons by Ethelred — Arthur and Edward — who had a clear right to the English throne. On the death of Canute the succession was disputed by Harold, son of Canute, and Hardicanute, the latter a son of Canute and Emma. Harold took the kingdom north of the Thames while Hardicanute ruled the south. It looked as if Edward would remain forever the forgotten heir, even though in 1042 he returned to England and lived with his mother at the court of Hardicanute. He was learning much in those days, however; much that would stand him in good stead. More still, he trod the hard way of the Cross. Good soldier of Christ that he was, Edward, cool–headed and quick of vision, waited in patience, bravely facing agonizing circumstances. What, for instance, could have been more heart breaking than the foul deed done his brother, Arthur? The young prince, invited by Danish plotters to visit England, found his soldiers trapped, himself a prisoner; they put out his eyes and he died as a result of this barbarous treatment. Emma, his heartless mother, accused of taking part in the plot, had to fly for her life to Bruges. By the irony of heaven, Harold ruled but four years, Hardicanute two, the latter dying in a drinking bout during a marriage festival. Then victory came for the neglected prince when the citizens of London unanimously summoned him to the throne of England.
The Good King
Edward at forty began his illustrious reign. It was, throughout, the rule of a peace–king who regarded his regal post as an almost priestly obligation, imposed by the sacred rites of consecration and anointment. Day after day he labored in this land which he found a waste, neither pruned nor weeded; in his eyes it was part of God’s cherished plantation. If ever a monarch was God’s man it was this Saxon saint who showed true homage to the Most High by ruling his kingdom in sincerity and justice all his days. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that his whole intelligence and will were committed to the betterment of his native land. Three powerful chieftains, Godwin, Leofric and Siward held out, liable at any time to turn against Edward. They did not succeed, however, for the King had somehow swiftly won his way into the hearts of the people. Very soon his rule was seen to be one of severe justice; he drove the plotting Danish families out of the kingdom, seized the treasures of the perfidious Emma, the Queen Mother, but mercifully allowed her to live in Winchester unmolested until she died in 1052. Many Normans, attracted to England, were honored with Edward’s friendship, but they presently fell out with native Saxon lords who bitterly resented their presence. Brawls and local strife ensued, nor did the situation improve when William, Duke of Normandy, paid his regal cousin a visit, was well received, and departed laden with rich gifts. By and large it grew increasingly clear that England was too small an island to hold Saxon and Norman, any more than Saxon and Dane. Besides, the ambitions of great families became a menace to the rule of the justice–loving monarch. At last Godwin, whose daughter Editha had become Edward’s wife and Queen, rose in arms with other chiefs against his King. The generous sovereign forgave the traitor, restored him to court, but Sweyn, another plotter, was exiled for murder and sent on a pilgrimage to Palestine.
The King himself, grateful for many blessings, planned to make a pilgrim journey to Rome. But the Witan (royal council) demurred, fearing for his safety and knowing there was no heir to the throne. Pope Leo IX absolved him from his vow on condition, first, that the pilgrim moneys be given to the poor, next that he would build an abbey in honor of St. Peter. This Edward proceeded to do, setting apart a tithe of his revenue for the foundation of Westminster Abbey! In lieu of his own visit he sent bishops to represent the Anglo–Saxon Church in the Council summoned by Rome, and dutifully put into effect the canons condemning simony and the decree excommunicating Berengarius. These bishops made it their business to consult the Holy Father in regard to problems that perplexed the royal conscience; they revered their King as a conscientious ruler, aware of his deep responsibility toward religion and toward the people entrusted to him. This truly Catholic spirit of kingship shines out in his championship of learning no less than in his defence of the downtrodden. Love of letters still persisted in old England despite the Danes who had done their worst to destroy the Saxon cloisters. Amid the ruin on every side, Edward set about restoring long–abandoned monasteries; he also erected Evesham and Peterborough, famous centers of light. He gave orders that the person of a schoolmaster should be regarded as inviolable as that of a cleric. For the poor of his kingdom he showed deepest concern, staggered by the thought of the rags and suffering they had to endure. One day when he saw the pile of gold collected to buy off the Danes he ordered it to be dispersed among the needy. Never again would there be any Danegelt which for thirty–eight years had crushed Anglo–Saxon laborers to earth in their effort to meet the odious tax. On another occasion certain nobles mulcted their vassals of large sums which they presented to Edward as an offering from his loyal subjects. The King bluntly refused the proffered gift, for he saw through their plans, and ordered the money returned, to the people who bad been so cruelly pinched to provide it. How could the English do otherwise than worship a ruler who bravely spent himself in their behalf, shouldered every burden of state, and maintained a straight course amid the most difficult times. Happily the old bloody days began to disappear like the Danish wave, which, spent in strength, no longer threatened England’s shores.
The Roman Scene
Had the English King been able to visit the Eternal City he would have met a really great Pope. Leo IX (1049—1034) the royal–born Bruno, knew his Rome, having entered it as a simple pilgrim and later as a cavalry commander with the Franconian Emperor Conrad. Very soon he left no doubt in the minds of either friend or foe that he intended to rule the Church justly and fearlessly. With heavy burdens on his shoulders he faced squarely the challenge of Michael Cerularius, the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Eastern Church had drawn farther away from the papacy, and now its ecclesiastical ruler, following in the footsteps of an earlier rebel, Photius, declared all Latin Catholics to be heretics. As if this were not enough, the quarrelsome Normans raided southern Italy in. 1053, forcing the pontiff to engage them in battle. When his little army met defeat, the Pope was taken prisoner. Then came the miraculous turn. The Normans, impressed with the dignity, courage and holiness of the Vicar of Christ, threw themselves at his feet and swore to be his protectors ever after. Leo proved a true White Shepherd of Christendom who visited his flock in far–off pastures — he travelled the long way to Germany where he met Spaniards, Bretons, Franks, Irish and English. To Edward he sent friendly missives, recognizing him for the God–sent ruler he was; but for his cousin William he had no such regard, and the proposed marriage of the wily Norman with Matilda of Flanders was strictly forbidden. The King of Hungary sought Leo’s counsel, and the King of Scotland, Macbeth, begged his absolution for the murder of Duncan. Oh yes, this Pope could have told Edward the Confessor much, if only they had met vis–à–vis.
An evil half–century had just come to an end when Leo IX ascended the Chair of Peter, headed for many trials. How that Chair had been abused, threatened, stained with blood and infamy! The resulting situation could have been nothing but a heartbreak to this great Pope as he reviewed the past fifty years. All the dreams for a truly Holy Roman Empire had faded with the death of the Emperor Otto III who was shortly followed by the Pope. After Sylvester II (d. 1003), three good but not great men ruled the flock — John XVII, John XVIII and Sergius IV — then the return of chaos. A war–time pontiff, Benedict VIII, gathered a force and defeated the Saracens who had landed in Maremma; any thought of combating worse evils, simony and impurity, seemed to get nowhere. Rome continued stewing in the evil broth it had brewed. The same old scandals continued under Pope John XIX, while his successor, Benedict IX, committed the most dreadful simony of all time — the papal office was sold! By the providence of God, the next Pope, Gregory VI, proved to be a pious and good man who had by his side the Benedictine monk Hildebrand, destined to be one of the greatest Pontiffs of all time. Just now, however, the true Pope had his hands full — you see the sad spectacle of three contestants for the See of Rome, each guarded by his soldiery, and so panicky was the city, overrun by hoodlums and gangsters, that the German Emperor, Henry III, had to come south to restore order. The Teuton spears could not quell the riots until one Pope was summoned to answer for his crimes and promptly deposed, while Gregory VII had to be whisked away to Germany. Grim and terrific were those days; the Italian plotters still employed their poison in–the–cup methods. And no sooner had Clement II, a German bishop, begun to rule behind the shields of yellow–haired northern warriors than he met a dreadful death; it was no secret that the hostile faction had poisoned the pontiff. His successor, Damasus II, did not live the year out.
All this Leo IX could undoubtedly have told the English King, for he was the one who had succeeded the short–lived Damasus.
Rule of Edward
By this time the Normans had made themselves felt on the continent, but England was far away as ever from their greedy hands. Edward continued to govern his people with a loving kindness in return for which they would gladly have died to serve him. Indeed — this the Normans knew —they were ready to rise as a united nation at a word from the throne. Only one war did the peace–loving monarch wage in his long reign of twenty–four years. That was in 1039 when Duncan, King of Scotland, had been foully murdered by Macbeth, and his son, Malcolm, came straight to Edward as a fugitive. The just King sent an army to vindicate Malcolm’s right, Macbeth was routed in Aberdeenshire, and the crown placed on the head of the rightful heir. True, there was the Welsh affair in 1055, when those quarrelsome bordermen interfered in a civil war, and Edward had to send Harold to drive out the plunderers. Yet when English soldiers overran Wales and the natives cried out for mercy, the King generously granted an armistice. Used to facing unsurmountable obstacles, equipped only with the shield of truth and the breastplate of justice, he continued to rule, without fear and without reproach. This was not so simple in an England where the cry of the rebel, the plots of his own court, the treachery of toadlike satellites, surrounded him. By the grace of God, however, Edward met them, one and all, as be moved unafraid amidst his people, advancing ever onward and upward. And as the years went by, it was seen how miraculously he had cleared England of much that was bitter and cruel, shameful and abominable. Most significant of all, the laws he enacted were just — very just for that day, and no foreigner succeeded in interfering or hindering him from working for the salvation of his people. The Danes no longer rummaged through the land like rag–pickers, bent on gathering into their dirty sacks the treasure and booty of a kingdom. And though the Normans had grown stronger, building themselves many castles in England, the generous King still tolerated them. Admittedly there were among these kinsmen many men of learning and zeal, who more than made up for the gallant vagabonds answering the call to reckless adventure.
As Edward’s life drew near to a close, those Normans from overseas grew daily in power. The treacheries of Godwin, on the other hand, brought down the world about his ears; he was outlawed with his five sons, and his daughter, Queen Edith, found herself driven from court. "Then," said the chronicler, "put away the king the lady who had been consecrated his queen, and caused to be taken from her all which she possessed, in land, and in gold, and in silver, and in all things, and delivered her to his sister at Wherwall."[2] The Bishop of London had to be expelled and Edward’s Norman chaplain, William, given his place; the Norman bishop, Rudolf, received the abbey of Abingdon. Thus the new corners continued to reap rich favors, while disgruntled Saxon nobles hinted that Duke William bad been promised the succession. Albeit the King held the reins, put down opposition through his great earls, Harold and Siward, and merited more and more the high regard of his people. At this time, says William of Malmesbury, "Edward was becoming of stature, his beard and hair milk–white, his countenance florid, fair throughout his whole person, and also his form of admirable proportion. He was a man by choice devoted to God, and lived the life of an angel in the administration of his kingdom. To the poor and to the stranger more especially foreigners, and men of religious orders, he was kind in invitation, munificent in presents, and constantly inciting the monks of his own country to imitate their holiness." In 1066 at Christmas the beloved King held his court at Westminster, and on Holy Innocents’ Day caused the great cathedral to be consecrated, little dreaming that very soon it would be his final resting place. The story is told that as Edward lay dying be suddenly revived and exclaimed, "Almighty God, if it be not an illusion but a true vision which I have beheld, grant me strength to tell it to those who are by. I saw just now standing by me two monks whom I had seen in Normandy in my youth, and knew to have lived most religiously and died most Christianly. These men assured me that they were sent to me with a message from God and proceeded as follows: Forasmuch as the princes, dukes, bishops and abbots of England are not the servants of God but of the devil, therefore God will within a year and a day deliver this kingdom into the hand of the enemy; and this land shall be wholly overrun with demons!"
The Norman Invasion
Directly the great King had passed the portal of a fuller life, the report went forth that he had appointed Harold, son of Earl Godwin, as his successor. But no sooner was Harold proclaimed ruler than he found himself in the thick of civil war and the threat of peril from abroad. The Duke of Normandy claimed that the new King had sworn that he, William, should succeed Edward, which Harold hotly denied saying that the oath had been extorted by force. One day in October, 1066, word came that the overseas claimant was landing with sixty thousand men on the Sussex coast. The Norman doubtless would stop at nothing to attain his ends, and the Saxon was equally determined to resist him to the death. Their two armies met at Senlac, nine miles from Hastings where the Saxons prepared for the onslaught of the Norman cavalry. When the clash came, the ancient battle–axe of the Islanders made itself felt in the deadly infighting; and though the bloody engagement continued all day long, the smaller army held its own until Harold, shot through the eye, had to be carried from the field. With the King out of the way, his brothers dead, and all the Saxon nobles slain, the Normans charged irresistibly. At the rise of the moon a thin bloody remnant of the Saxon army fled through the woods, pursued by the invaders many of whom lost their lives in the swamps and ditches. That the Normans paid dearly for England is evident from the fact that one–fourth of their numbers fell on the field of Hastings. So cruel was the Conqueror that he ordered the body of King Harold to be buried on the beach, adding with a sneer: "He guarded the coast while he was alive, let him continue to guard it after death." With William seated on the throne it looked as if Edward the Confessor’s vision was not so illusory, after all. The Conqueror became the Universal Landlord of England, a hard taskmaster who confiscated Saxon lands which he gave over to his Norman followers. Listen to the lament of the Saxon monk of St. Albans: "The lords of England, who since Brutus’ days had never known the yoke of slavery, were now scorned, derided, and trodden under foot; they were compelled to shave their beards and clip their flowing locks in the Norman fashion: casting aside their horns and wonted drinking–vessels, their feasts and carousals, they were compelled to submit to new laws. Where fore many of the English nobles refused the yoke of slavery and fled with all their households to live by plunder in the woods, so that scarce any man could go safely abroad in his own neighbourhood; the houses of all peaceful folk were armed like a besieged city with bows and arrows, bills and axes, clubs and daggers and iron forks; the doors were barred with locks and bolts. The master of the house would say prayers as if on a tempest–tost bark; as doors or windows were closed, men said Benedicite, and Dominus echoed reverently in response; a custom which lasted down into our own days (probably about 1150 A.D.)." The old Anglo–Saxon law, none the less, stood its ground, and was amended or added to as time went on. But no papal legate was allowed to enter England except with William’s express permission; even the bishops were forbidden to open letters from Rome until they had passed through the Norman monarch’s hands,
Labors of the Church
England was, of course, a far–off corner of the European vineyard. But elsewhere the Church had to meet equally difficult opposition. The one power that could unify Christendom was the papacy; the task of the papacy was to curb the widespread lust, avarice and injustice, and to diminish the ill–gotten power of secular rulers over things spiritual. If, for example, there was to be freedom in papal elections, the Emperor and the Roman factions must keep their hands off. Pope Nicholas II (1059—1061) went right to work on this all–important issue. By a decree of a Roman synod in 1059 the choice of a Pope was placed in the hands of the College of Cardinals, cardinal–bishops being empowered to take the initiative. The synod further ruled that the Church no longer acknowledged the immense influence wielded by the German Emperor; a most potent weapon was swept from his hands. Old complications persisted, however, due to the schemes of ambitious rulers who made bishops into counts or dukes of their diocese, then used them as catspaws in royal intrigues. Still worse, many venal churchmen, belying their high calling, betrayed their Holy Mother by joining sides in private wars. These wars, which had flared up endlessly under the feudal system, were now vigorously opposed, the Church denying their very principle, and enjoining on all war–makers "the Truce of God" — a cessation of armed conflict from sunset of Wednesday until Monday —to commemorate the days of Christ’s arrest, trial, crucifixion and victory over death!
On the death of Pope Nicholas II, the College of Cardinals elected Alexander II, thus challenging the opposition of the Italian and the imperial parties. Acts such as bribing Officials and intimidating honest men continued as of yore. To live in a city of plotters and poisoners was not easy, yet Alexander carried on for twelve years, battling against powerful prelates guilty of simony, and courageously withstanding high–born schemers. It was well for him that he had two great church men, Hildebrand and Peter Damian, close at hand. They initiated many reforms in the face of foes who would gladly have wiped them off the face of the earth. When the young, uncurbed Emperor, Henry IV, showed signs of evil life Alexander promptly reproved him and refused even to consider his request for a divorce. Henry, as we shall see, was to be the chronic worry of the papacy, while year after year ill–luck and failure dogged his path. The affair of the Milan archbishopric precipitated the most bitter of all conflicts. Who was the lawful incumbent? The Emperor angrily con tended for his man, the allies of the papacy proved, adamant for another. It was clear that unless the situation was justly handled there could be little hope for order and peace. So Hildebrand journeyed to Milan as papal legate and laid down the law at a time when Germany was still divided. Henry was now in serious straits, Saxon nobles having threatened his liberty, if not his life. The fact is, the German Emperor could never be trusted, and his backers were just as bad. One of the last acts of the dying pontiff was to hurl the ban of the Church against these perfidious councillors. On April 21, 1073, Alexander, weary unto death after a whole decade of endless strife, went to his reward. Who was to be the next Pope?
The Pope of the Century
Hildebrand, returning from the funeral of Alexander, was horrified to hear the cries of the Roman populace, "Let Hildebrand be Pope! Blessed Peter hath chosen Hildebrand !" A year passed before the most self–effacing man of that age was ordained and consecrated Bishop of Rome, taking the name of Gregory VII. He did not deem himself worthy of the priesthood, this little bow–legged man, son of a carpenter, who spoke with a stammer, yet possessed almost unbelievable dynamic energy. No man in that day exercised so vital an influence on the development of religion and the achievement of law and order. Nothing daunted, the sagacious Pope sent word to the Emperor regarding his election, warning him to clean his house, for the German court was infamous for its simony and moral disorder. Two years later, Gregory could write to his friend, Hugh, Abbot of Cluny: "Wherever I turn my eyes — to the west, or to the north, or to the south— I find everywhere Bishops who have obtained their office in an irregular way, whose lives and conversations are strangely at variance with their sacred calling; and who go through their duties not for the love of Christ but for motives of worldly gain. . . ." Characteristically the great reformer took action without delay — "Whoever in the future," he declared before the Roman Synod, "receives a bishopric or an abbacy from the hands of a layman, shall not be regarded as a bishop or an abbot. Similarly if an Emperor, a duke, a marquis, or a count dares to confer an investiture in connection with a bishopric or any other ecclesiastical office, he shall be cut off from the communion of Blessed Peter."
The Pope, ever insistent on obedience to the Holy See, fought for truth and justice. For twelve long years he strove to preserve the security of the Church, seeing that the super natural character of Christendom was at stake. As might be expected, Henry IV whose ego was far from deflated, resisted him to the hilt; he summoned his episcopal puppets who went into a diet at Worms. There they proceeded to "depose" Gregory while Henry sent him the following message: "Henry, King, not by usurpation but by the will of God, to Hildebrand who is no longer pope but a false monk. Having been condemned by the sentence of our bishops and by our sentence, vacate the place which you have usurped." At the Lateran, Gregory calmly read the outrageous letter, then made reply, "I deprive Henry the King, son of Henry the Emperor, of all authority in the Kingdom of the Teutons and in Italy. I release all Christians from their oaths of fidelity sworn to him or that they shall swear to him. . . . I bind him with, the chain of anathema...." The result was amazing, terrific! No armed forces could have accomplished what the papal excommunication achieved. Many of the imperial vassals, disgusted with Henry’s vile plots and evil life, turned against him, and the once all–powerful ruler found himself bound for the unknown, without friends or allies. When he learned that his own nobles had invited Gregory to come to Augsburg to sit in judgment upon their King, that was the last stroke. All his pleas were in vain; they declared that he must forfeit the throne unless he obtained the Pope’s absolution within a year and a day. Then an extraordinary thing happened. The proud Henry, rather than meet the Pope as an ally of his own princes, decided to leave Germany, go to Italy and throw himself at the feet of the Pope. As a penitent pilgrim he made his, way to Canossa, Matilda’s great domain in Tuscany, where Gregory was a guest. The migrant Emperor stood barefooted in the snow, weeping and pleading before the rigidly closed gates of the fortress. Was he only pretending a reconciliation, shedding crocodile tears because he was so thoroughly beaten? Time will tell. Any how, after three days, Gregory, moved with mercy, admitted him into the castle, and absolved him on condition that he appease those princes who had justly accused him of his crimes!
The cause of the Church had been won, but only for a little while. Henry’s repentance proved short–lived; presently he was annulling elections and investing whomsoever he pleased. And as his evil life kept pace with his perfidy, the princes rebelled and raised Rudolf of Swabia to the kingship. Henry’s woes piled up when the decree against investiture was renewed in 1080 and Pope Gregory again excommunicated him "for raising his heel against the Church and striving to subjugate it." Henry got together a group of anti–papal German bishops who met in Synod at Brixton, formally "deposed" Gregory and went so far as to appoint as his successor Clement III. Then the diehard, in a sudden burst of power, led his army down to Rome to install the anti–Pope "made in Germany." The papacy was again in imminent peril, what with Rudolf of Swabia slain in battle, Robert Guiseard too late on the scene, and that other powerful Norman, William the Conqueror, an uninterested looker–on. For three years Henry tried in vain to enter Rome, while the Pope took shelter in the Castle of St. Angelo. Not until he was betrayed by the Roman nobles, and abandoned by the retreating Normans, did Gregory fly to Salerno. Once in command of the city, Henry, mad with his moment of victory, proclaimed Clement III Pope and then, on Easter, 1084, received the imperial crown from his candidate. The heroic and incorruptible Gregory died soon after this; his last words were: "I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile." It looked as if the victory of the temporal power had all but nullified his life work. But no. Not at all! For he had taught the aggressive Emperor a lesson never to be forgotten; also, Canossa broke the rebellious spirit of the bishops. Even though Henry outlived the century, he reaped the reward of a gnarled, misspent life. Driven from his throne, the "lone wolf" tried to stage a come–back but died in the endeavor. Twice they dug up his body by the order of the Church and it was fully five years before the curse of Rome was removed from his ashes.
Wings of Dawn
Dark days indeed, yet all this time there was steady growth in knowledge and holiness. Indeed, the eleventh century was an era of reform and church purification. Hope went hand in hand with zeal to bring about changes nothing short of dramatic. The Schoolmen — Lanfranc in Normandy, Anselm in England — applied reason to systematize and vindicate theology — "faith seeking for knowledge; and philosophy rapidly became the handmaid of religion." Far more important was the spirit of reform such as animated Edward the Confessor, Leo VIII and Gregory IX. In England, for instance, Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, withstood to the face William II who tried to seize the revenues of the Church, whereupon the King ordered that he be tried for treason. But the English bishops refused to depose their primate; and the undaunted Anselm challenged the nobles of the land: "If any man pretend that I have violated the faith which I have sworn to the king, because I will not reject the authority of the Bishop of Rome, let him come forward and he will find me ready to answer him as I ought. . . ." Such was the spirit that began to renew the face of Europe. And as the charity of many waxed warm, all sorts and conditions of men sought true life in old monasteries while new orders were founded by great saints. An incident in the old chronicle pictures this great quickening and the consequent change for the better.
A certain Knight named Waleman, desiring to become a monk, rode to the abbey of Hemmenrode on his war–horse, and in full armour; in full armour he rode into the cloister, and (as I have been told by our older monks who were present) the porter led him down the middle of the choir, under the eyes of the whole community, who marvelled at this new form of conversion. The Knight then offered himself upon the altar of the Blessed Virgin, and, putting off his armour, took the habit of religion in that same monastery, thinking it fit to lay down his earthly knighthood in the very spot where he purposed to become a Knight of the Holy Ghost. Here, when the days of his novitiate were past, he chose in his humility to become a lay–brother; and here be still lives, a good and religious man.[3]
John Gualberto was obviously that sort of knight. On Good Friday in 1030 he tracked his brother’s slayer into a church and was on the point of despatching him when, looking up to the great crucifix, his eyes were held by the living eyes of Christ. The dagger dropped from his trembling hand as he fled in panic down the aisle, aware of how close he had come to murder. Eight years later John, the penitent, founded the Order of Vallombrosia whose monks aspired to the most severe life and did much to make up for the prevailing monastic laxity.
The magnificent reforms of Cluny, remember, gained ground rapidly in the most out–of–the–way places. New bonds of union were forged by the "Customs of Cluny," observed in hundreds of old Benedictine monasteries, now returned to the spirit of their sainted founder. There were congregations of houses under a central abbot, and a system of visitation under the Abbot of Cluny which looked to the strict observance of the old rule. Step by step with these developments, the Camaldolese monks (founded by St. Romuald in 1012) extended their holy hermit activities far and wide. In 1084 Bruno, a high–born scholar, casting wealth and power to the winds, founded the Carthusians in the wilderness near Grenoble. His monks lived as hermits, and "La Chartreuse" became a great spiritual center. Robert of Molesme, born 1027, built an abbey in Molesme, but when his monks grew lax, the brave leader left them, and erected a reformed monastery in Burgundy, which was called Citeaux. His Cistercians, the greatest of whom was Bernard, loomed large as they followed the rule of St. Benedict in all its austerity. Another Robert, de Forlande, became a Benedictine, established a reform in 1043 and built the monastery of Chaise–Dieu which presently counted two hundred other monasteries in its congregation. These brave monks bore the heat and burden of the day, laboring silently in the most abandoned wastelands of the Vineyard. Nor may we omit the name of Peter Damian, so staunch and far–seeing, who by the side of Hildebrand initiated and promoted the most vital developments. Both men backed Popes in their efforts to put an end to simony and the immorality of the clergy. They brought Canon Law to bear on the culprits and sought to purify the Church of the blackest stains. They worked as one for the advancement of papal authority, Peter as Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, Hildebrand as the humble monk who bad contacts in all Europe. The three Popes that followed Gregory VII— Victor III, Urban II, and Paschal II— witnessed the beautiful flowering of monastic life. At the century–end the Church could further rejoice when brave knights of the First Crusade recovered Jerusalem from the Turks.
[1] Isaias V, 1—2
[2] Angoo–Saxon Chronicle
[3] Caes. Heist, I, 45
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